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The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is the code department of the Illinois state government that operates the adult state prison system. The IDOC is led by a director appointed by the Governor of Illinois, and its headquarters are in Springfield.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, the United States is one of four advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method. It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used.
In the U.S. state of California, capital punishment is a legal penalty. However it is not allowed to be carried out as of June 2023, because executions were halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. Prior to the moratorium, executions were frozen by a federal court order since 2006, and the litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the promulgation of the moratorium. Thus, there will be a court-ordered moratorium on executions after the termination of Newsom's moratorium if capital punishment remains a legal penalty in California by then.
The U.S. state of Washington enforced capital punishment until the state's capital punishment statute was declared null and void and abolished in practice by a state Supreme Court ruling on October 11, 2018. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional as applied due to racial bias however it did not render the wider institution of capital punishment unconstitutional and rather required the statute to be amended to eliminate racial biases. From 1904 to 2010, 78 people were executed by the state; the last was Cal Coburn Brown on September 10, 2010. In April 2023, Governor Jay Inslee signed SB5087 which formally abolished capital punishment in Washington State and removed provisions for capital punishment from state law.
Capital punishment was abolished via the legislative process on May 2, 2013, in the U.S. state of Maryland.
An execution chamber, or death chamber, is a room or chamber in which capital punishment is carried out. Execution chambers are almost always inside the walls of a maximum-security prison, although not always at the same prison where the death row population is housed. Inside the chamber is the device used to carry out the death sentence.
Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in United States history to do so.
Alton Coleman was an American serial killer who, along with accomplice Debra Brown, committed a crime spree across six states between May and July 1984 that resulted in the deaths of eight people. Coleman, who received death sentences in three states, was executed by the state of Ohio in 2002. Brown was sentenced to death in Ohio and Indiana, but the sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment without parole and 140 years, respectively.
The Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers was an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles. The group composed of Robin Gecht and three associates: Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting. According to one of the detectives who investigated the case, Gecht "made Manson look like a Boy Scout."
Capital punishment in Connecticut formerly existed as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia until Connecticut repealed capital punishment in 2012, Connecticut had only executed one person, Michael Bruce Ross in 2005. Initially, the 2012 law allowed executions to proceed for those still on death row and convicted under the previous law, but on August 13, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that applying the death penalty only for past cases was unconstitutional.
The Tamms Correctional Center is a closed Illinois Department of Corrections prison located in Tamms, Illinois. Prior to its 2013 closure, the prison housed people in two sections: (1) a 200-bed minimum security facility, opened in 1995, and (2) a 500-bed supermax facility known as the Closed Maximum Security Unit ("CMAX"), opened in 1998, that housed people defined by the prison leadership as most disruptive and dangerous.
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Capital punishment was abolished in the U.S. state of North Dakota in 1973. Historically, a total of eight people have been executed in North Dakota, including one execution prior to North Dakota attaining statehood.
Capital punishment in Delaware was abolished after being declared unconstitutional by the Delaware Supreme Court on August 2, 2016. The ruling retroactively applies to earlier death sentences, and remaining Delaware death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Despite this, the capital statute for first-degree murder under Title 11, Chapter 42, Section 09, of the Delaware Code has yet to be repealed, though it is unenforceable.
Capital punishment has been repealed in the U.S. state of Illinois since 2011.
References
- ↑ "Searchable Execution Database". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved June 7, 2023.
- ↑ "Alton Coleman #771". www.clarkprosecutor.org. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
- ↑ Terry, Don (23 March 1995). "2 Executions In Illinois, Rarity There". The New York Times.
- ↑ article, Susan Kuczka and Gary Marx, Tribune Staff Writers Tribune reporters Janan Hanna, Christi Parsons and Suzy Frisch contributed to this (22 March 1995). "DUPAGE KILLER EXECUTED". chicagotribune.com.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "Quinn signs death penalty ban, commutes 15 death row sentences to life". Chicago Tribune . March 9, 2011. Retrieved March 9, 2011.